photography by a kate in michigan

A visit to GRAM – ArtPrize 2012

I made some time last night to walk through the Grand Rapids Art Museum. This is a really popular venue and as ArtPrize goes on, it gets more and more difficult to get in without waiting in a huge line. Last night was great. It was early enough that it wasn’t packed, and a lot of the artists were present. I loved the casual atmosphere of the museum. This is one of the greatest perks of ArtPrize. A lot of the artists are present and approachable.

Being a photographer, I was loving being able to observe the interaction between the artists and the viewers.

Adonna Khare plans to continue adding to her piece throughout ArtPrize. She talked with people as they filed through to see her work. It really is incredible.

Anne Gates talked with viewers about her labor intensive process behind hand embroidered egg shells. This is a pretty innovative way to interpret human motivation.

Chis Laporte is pretty well known around town and also for being the winner of ArtPrize back in 2010. I overheard him speaking with the guy pictured about how this image, which includes his grandfather, touches on the connection they had through music.

I saved my favorite for last. I was immediately struck by Andrew Hawkes’ work, ‘its not my fault’. This hit me on an emotional level from the first time I saw it, and then after reading with the artist’s statement I realized that I identify with a lot of the ideas that the artist used to create the piece. He refers to some of his inspiration deriving from Congo nail figures, “… a nail is driven into a wooden effigy to cement specific events as well as to ward off evil. Interestingly enough it was through the sheer destruction and damage to this figure that positive changes could occur.”

This guy is only 24 years old, but he shows that he has a very old soul.

Andrew Hawkes is pictured here at right chatting with neighboring artist, Nathan Craven, who did the ceramic wall pictured at the far right.